


A Fucking Fairy Tale For Adults

by Reetal



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Bad Ending (Detroit: Become Human), Connor is deactivated, Connor replaced by RK900, Drama, Hank commited suicide, M/M, Post-Canon, RK900 is called Richard, The revolution was suppressed, Upgraded Connor | RK900 Has a Different Name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 10:13:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16116287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reetal/pseuds/Reetal
Summary: No program built in RK900 could determine how he got a not related to the tasks and work need for being next to the detective as long and often as possible.The revolution was suppressed; to fight deviancy CyberLife embeds trackers into androids that instantly transmit data about deviated androids' location to the company for elimination.





	A Fucking Fairy Tale For Adults

**Author's Note:**

> A translation of [Сказка, блять, для взрослых](https://ficbook.net/readfic/7275006) by риц. (I just really love her writing).  
> Please notice that English is not my first language, and feel free to point out any mistakes!
> 
>  **Author's Note**  
>  rk900 and gavin here are as sane as possible.  
> i hate amanda so she won't be in this work. :)

“RK900.”

RK900 saw the world through numbers and algorithms displayed on the screen in neon-red tables and holograms.

“An upgraded model of negotiator android.”

There were a lot more functions and skills built in its program than in the previous model’s.

“Resistant to deviancy.”

CyberLife staff had done their best to lower the risks of the still being studied rA9 virus appearing.

“Your new partner, Reed. The name’s Richard.”

RK900 was standing in front of the detective, developing a behavior pattern that would be the most conducive for their collaborative work.

The new partner gave it a disdainful (as the program considered) glance and turned away. “Can you send it back right away?”

At that moment Richard knew there might be problems with developing the behavior pattern.  
They weren’t long in coming.

“All right, tin can, since you’ve been assigned to me, and I’m used to work alone, you need to remember two things.” Gavin pulled the android closer by the black shirt high collar, looking in the glass eyes and smirking. “Don’t get in the way and don’t piss the fuck off me.”

“I’m sorry, Detective, but for constructive dialogue and collaborative work you should take your hands off me. To start things off.”

The first meeting didn’t bring anything good for the detective (RK900 didn’t knock his teeth out and didn’t punch him in the eye because harming a human was against its program — he got away with his arm being twisted and a warning from Captain Fowler).  
Neither did the second one, by the way. Nor the third.

Detective Reed turned out to be irritating, rude, prone to regular outbursts of anger, had a difficult personality, and overall was an unpleasant person to collaborate with to solve cases.  
Gavin never stopped reminding RK900 that it should’ve been sent to a junkyard, melted down, or taken apart and converted into a floor lamp.

It’d been two months before constant fights during their work reduced to a minimum.

Fowler considered that as a step forward in their relationship.

Reed complained afterwards that there were no fucking steps, that Fowler didn’t get a shit and could go fuck himself and his relationships. He complained to Richard, by the way, while sitting at the desk next to him and holding a cup of coffee he got him, sending reports for review to him.  
RK900, not taking his eyes off the scowling detective glaring at the terminal that time, noticed with surprise an error message appeared before his eyes notifying about the software instability. He closed it hurriedly and started a full system check.

“Hey, tin can, you short circuited or what?” Gavin furrowed his brow, concerned, as he noticed confusion on the usually blank face (any brick would envy such steadiness).

“Are you worried?”

“You wish,” snorted and turned away.

Richard couldn’t explain why at that moment he wanted(?) to hear a different response. And it caused another error (he would’ve started a diagnostic one more time but he couldn’t since it was already in process).

No system malfunction found.

No program built in RK900 could determine how he got a not related to the tasks and work need(?) for being next to the detective as long and often as possible. It appeared from nowhere, soaking in as a line of code in his algorithm, and popped off in annoying error messages from time to time (closing his eyes didn’t help getting rid of them).  
Not that Richard tried that hard.

The desire(?) to look at the detective, to take half of his work surreptitiously (because otherwise he would’ve definitely started arguing why the damn tin can took the work from dying and not getting enough sleep him), to cover his back during missions made the LED on his temple flash a frightening red color. Because of the blinding red standing out in every mirror the necessity of visiting CyberLife for an immediate diagnostic got expelled from the list of priorities.  
Richard couldn’t feel fear but something remotely close to it blended into the program. When the errors became constant the fear(?) grew stronger, taking roots in the code lines.

Gavin had never asked what was going on with him but the scanners built in the android fixed well (not really) hidden concern and worry felt by his partner. And after that Richard was once again thrown into a whirl of errors, warnings and notifying messages.  
Richard seemed to throw himself into the whirl, letting go of the rope thrown to help him.

They were standing in the cafeteria while a TV broadcasted an interview with one of the new CyberLife stockholders. Gavin was drinking cold coffee and scrolling twitter while Richard was reading him the materials of a new case.

A young woman on TV said that cases of deviancy had decreased significantly for the last few months.  
The young woman on TV said that people should stop worrying about the androids they bought becoming deviants because the company promised immediate (25 minutes in Detroit) location by trackers and following by that elimination of machines ran out of control.  
The young woman on TV didn’t finish saying about active researches of deviancy because Gavin turned off the volume with a snap of his fingers.

Richard noticed almost immediately that Gavin looked for approval (whether it was a joke — usually not funny — or any other action) of his colleagues. He turned to them, watching for their reaction with the glowing, slightly narrowed eyes, and all but demanded attention to himself. At first RK900 counted that as his feature, then said something about circus, dramatics and theatrics a few times, at which he got a vibrant middle finger nearly touching his straight, plastic nose.

When Gavin after another inappropriate joke at the crime scene turned to Richard his LED flashed, the breathing imitation system crashed, and the settings responsible for thirium circulation got busted. The software instability was a final accord in this unfavorable act.

After the suppressed rebellion androids’ place in society moved a few steps down compared to the previous year (not that androids had a place in society before). And while Gavin stopped getting on RK900 all the time (he got used to him in the end, they got along, and Fowler wasn’t going to fire Gavin) others never missed the chance to snub or insult an android.

Richard didn’t mind the obvious antipathy from humans he had to question _(“Can you replace your… robot?” “I won’t tell anything to a machine and I don’t give a shit that it’s from police.” “My daughter was killed by one of these heaps of scrap metal!”_ ). So when Gavin pushed another complaining witness to the wall, explaining him tactfully that he’d better shut his mouth if he didn’t want to pull his tongue out of his ass, RK900 had to pull the mad detective away from the man with a fair delay, flashing the choking witness in the eye with his blinking LED.

“You’ll have to write a report,” Richard said a bit later, when he got a notification about a complaint received. “Why did you do it?”

Gavin was riding shotgun, holding a cup of coffee… with cinnamon (“Cinnamon? Really?” “It smells nice, Detective.”) the android bought for him, while Richard was driving to the station.

“The first rule of driving — don’t talk while driving.”

“Then you should not drive. Ever.”

“Yeah, right, watch the road.”

Richard noticed it back at the first month of working together that Gavin wasn’t really the most prudent office of Detroit police. He jumped right into action on an incredible regular basis, disregarding calculating RK900’s warnings, and suffered wounds that left imprints with scars on his body. Richard hadn’t had an opportunity to look closely at it, but the ones the scowling face was streaked with were enough to grasp Reed’s lack of responsibility.

So when after a raid Gavin turned up at the station with a split cheek the android stuck a plaster on it. Reed, nearly jumping in his chair, lashed out at him, threatened to take Richard apart himself and send him to a junkyard, but _didn’t remove_ the plaster (and turned away from the android sitting in front of him with a pack of plasters lying on his desk).

Irrational actions in RK900’s program appeared in direct ratio with time spent with the detective.  
Richard once found himself going away from Reed’s desk without his jacket (because the jacket was thrown over the shoulders of the detective sleeping at his desk).

It took him, frozen, a few minutes before he ignored instantly realized stupidity and illogic of the action.  
No matter how hard Richard stated that he controlled the situation and him becoming a deviant was as possible as the existence of superheroes (comics about which Reed loved in his childhood) the threat of deviancy emerged with errors in his code and flashed with the red LED in the dark of the station.

Richard tended to think he was beginning to hate red. And was ready to go to CyberLife as he realized that hate was a thing when it came to humans, not machines with _no feelings_.  
Richard couldn’t swear and burst out a stream of the choicest four-letter words, but in that moment he really wished he could.  
RK900’s settings were officially busted and needed an urgent adjustment.

Perhaps he could’ve even gotten to the company in time (it was unlikely that the company could’ve fixed anything; only sent a new model), if not for all the work he had to do.

Gavin never stopped reminding that Anderson who blew his brains out managed to screw things over at the station even after his death. RK900 hadn’t met the lieutenant in person but often heard about his previous model from his partner (“I told it to bring me a coffee, it refused, so I punched it the way it doubled over!”). Richard just _couldn’t_ tell him that android had rather not wanted to hurt his feelings than actually felt pain — Gavin was talking about it with such pride it made his contacts short circuit and his audio processor seemed to get jammed.

At the beginning of April they were sitting in the car, tracking down a suspect; it was late at night, lanterns illuminated a deserted street on the outskirts of the city with dim citrine light. Richard was sitting shotgun, checking the CCTV.

“Detective Reed, you should sleep for at least a few hours. The suspect, by my calculation, won’t leave the house till morning.”

The circles under Gavin’s eyes had become the size of nearly half of his face for the last week (Richard wasn’t worried, because machines couldn’t be worried, but his sensors jumped to a critical level every time the detective opened another energy drink).

“Your calculation during the last mission was shit.” Gavin slipped down a bit in his seat, resting his hands in his jacket pockets.

“When I had to cover your ass?”

That time Richard had managed to drag the detective away from a hand grenade thrown by one of criminals and cover him with his own body instead of running after their associates. The picture of Reed’s astounded face and his eyes wide open in fear (that’d caused static on his screen gleaming with bright red and white flashes, breaking the fragile — already — code) had been saved in a special folder in the android’s memory. The folder was called _Detective Reed_ and weighed a few hundred gigabytes.  
The first thing Gavin had said then was a loud “What the hell?”  
The second thing was a scared “Hey, you’re not gonna die here, are you?”  
The third thing was a nervous “ _Richard_ , fuck, just don’t shut down.”  
Richard missed the moment when saving the detective’s life became the top priority over the mission.

“Fuck, don’t start.”  
Gavin yawned, shutting his eyes tight and not covering his mouth.  
Richard had to frantically close notifications popping off on his screen about the thirium pump accelerating.  
“It was a fucking accident. And get it out of your program that I owe you or something.”

“Something? Like what?” Richard cocked his head, quirking the corner of his mouth; Gavin who turned to him froze, shifted his gaze at the dashboard, confused, and murmured something about where he should go and what to do.

An hour later Richard adjusted the jacket slipped from the sleeping detective’s shoulders and became certain CyberLife couldn’t handle the instability of his program. Neither could he, but he tried hard.  
After all, he was a model resistant to deviancy.

The next day Gavin while sending information about the successfully closed case to his email to deal with it at home asked(?) invited(?) (what was that?) Richard over.

“Because, shit… there’s too fucking much and… oh, fuck you.”

“Detective, do you want me to help you with work at your place?”

RK900 was an upgraded model so he determined cause-and-effect relations more quickly than any other android. Sometimes it served him well, sometimes bad (because the look of the embarrassed detective and a calculation of those relations definitely didn’t ensure a reduction in number of errors).

RK900 had a reputation of a model resistant to the software instability, so many police stations across all country had bought a few robots.  
Richard would’ve written a negative review on the company website because the resistance to deviancy obviously needed some improvements, but he couldn’t do it since he was a part of CyberLife himself (the block responsible for non-disclosure of the information built in subcortex of his program was a forbidding obstacle).

The first thing Richard thought about when he got to Gavin’s house and saw him in casual clothes was the fact that CyberLife was in about 19 minutes of road from there (and this time he didn’t consider going there _by himself_ — because they would come _for him_ ).

“A fish bowl?”

“That’s what you’re staring at.” Gavin rolled his eyes while sitting on a couch in the living room; a laptop on his knees displayed a few files promising a sleepless night. “Stop gaping at it. And don’t knock on the glass.” Richard put his hand down and straightened, making his way to the couch. “They sorta don’t like it.”

“Have you searched for the information about having a fish at home?”

“No, I just fucking hooked some fish in the river and put it into the bowl. Of course I’ve searched for it, don’t be stupid.”  
Richard sat at the opposite end of the couch, keeping his back straight and folding his arms on his chest.  
“I actually wanted to have a cat.” Gavin rubbed his nose and sniffled.  
Richard cocked his head slightly, looking carefully at the face profile and noticing embarrassment appearing on it.  
“But the job makes it difficult.”

RK900 was an upgraded model and could easily model a situation but decided not to imagine Gavin with a cat.

Richard didn’t notice how he eventually moved to the detective over time. At first they really worked and were busy with paperwork, and then they somehow got to the point where RK900 occasionally (a bit later on a regular basis) went to a store, fed the fish (officially Harry, de facto Fishlet), had ~~made~~ asked Gavin to play a dusty guitar once, made him, sleepy and disheveled, coffee in the morning (so _they_ were late much less often; and yes, he spent the nights on the couch in the living room), and relentlessly closed the error messages his program sank in.

Richard held on to the utmost to the self-image of a program-machine-android-etc. (and soon came to a conclusion that it was the only thing saving him from deviancy — indeed, a _resistant_ model).  
The program itself hanged by broken fingers of the left hand.

Richard was washing the dishes while Gavin was finishing a report needed to be sent to the captain by the end of the day, and opened a cabinet to put a plate in it. He nearly broke the plate as there were a few bags of thirium in the cabinet shimmering blue in the light of a lamp.

“Well, yeah,” Gavin mumbled, tucking his head into his shoulders, “thirium. Tin can, meet thirium, thirium, meet tin can.”

“Why do you have it?” Richard held the plate, held the thirium, while his program was crashing at the light speed, dissolving the algorithms and the code lines in a neon-red goo.

Richard had sworn to himself he would never scan Gavin (not that there had been a time when he _didn’t_ do it). So scanning the rapid heartbeat reflecting red on Reed’s cheeks made his program crash faster (its broken fingers had given up already, unable to hold).

“You hang around here. Sometimes.” By _sometimes_ Gavin meant half of the day (the other half Richard spent at the station with him). “Well, what if you’re hungry, so you don’t have to go CyberFuck.”

“CyberLife. It’s in 19 minutes of road discounting traffic jam.”

“Whatever.”

Only then the realization that he practically lived with the detective struck RK900, hitting him with a couple more errors (heavy like the Mighty Thor’s hammer — he wasn’t interested in comic books, but Gavin still was).  
He remembered that the last time he spent the night at the station 22 days ago and ran a quick diagnostic.  
He wished it could help.

They were watching a movie (instead of doing paperwork, yes; paperwork hadn’t been done within the walls of Reed’s house for weeks already).

“The main character’s actions defy logic.” Richard was wearing his shirt with the sleeves rolled up (his jacket was in a closet in the corridor) and sitting next to Gavin who slouched on the couch with his feet on a coffee table, his elbow touching the android’s hip.

“Nah, her actions are clear. Fell in love with an amphibian, ran to the sea with it, everyone’s happy, the end. It’s just the romantic part was fucked up.”

“It has many logical inconsistencies,” the android nodded, glancing at abstracted Gavin. “So does the plot. So does everything. Are you sure this movie got Oscar?”

“Check it in your base. Can’t believe I’ve even watched it with you,” Reed murmured quietly now, scratching his neck.

“The characters’ motivations are written–”

“Shitty?” Gavin pulled up his legs and leaned his back against the couch. “I guess the director just turned the blind eye to all the screw-ups while filming it. It actually kinda has a meaning. Something about the absence of barriers, uncrushable will, and faith in love, no matter what kind of.”  
Richard’s LED blinked a couple of times as he looked at the detective who turned to him and watched his concerned face carefully with the sad eyes. Gavin quirked the corner of his mouth, lowering his gaze to the android’s closed lips, making the thirium pump work faster, hitting the plate on the chest.  
“A fucking fairy tale for adults.” He straightened up, tired, and reached for the remote, switching the channel. “Has decent music, though.”

After the work, when grocery stores were still open (which was a rare thing with their crazy schedule — dozens of cases had been handed over to their station from others for the last months) Richard heard a sound of CyberLife cars from around the corner. An android with its LED blinking red was running down the street, pushing people passing by and nearly bumping into houses.  
Gavin stopped, noticing the white and blue company cars surrounding it and people taking in the cornered android. He bit his lip and walked to his house, not watching the car leaving.

At home Gavin stood by the open window in the dark kitchen and held a cigarette between his fingers, breathing in the smoke filling his lungs. He leaned on the sill, looking thoughtfully at the smoldering end, and felt concerned gaze on his back.

“I sometimes think what it would’ve been like if androids had gotten rights after that fucking revolution.”

Richard stood beside him, looked at the detective’s dejected figure and couldn’t get it why he wanted to come closer (closer than just standing _beside_ ) and perhaps hold him?  
Gavin looked lost, sick and tired of _everything_. Richard wanted to _hide_ him from this everything, to cover him with his body like with that hand grenade.  
RK900’s systems were giving up, shattering on his screen.

“It would’ve led to major changes in all spheres of society. It’s impossible to say whether it would’ve been good for humanity. Deviated androids are… unpredictable, Detective.”

The diagrams on Richard’s panel jumped to the limit, towering somewhere beyond the screen, when Reed glanced at him.

“Have you got any glitches? I mean,” Reed tousled his hair and Richard registered his tension (Gavin’s emotional state looked like a stretched string), “errors, any other shit?”

“I self-test regularly.”  
Richard decided not to tell that the results of the tests became less comforting with each passing day.

“I bet you do.” Reed put out his cigarette and took a new one from the pack. “Will be shitty if you go deviant.”

“You’ll receive a new partner,” RK900’s flat voice faltered, “and I will be sent to the factory to gather the information about deviancy and prevent–”

“And what if someone hides you?” Gavin interrupted, rolling the spark wheel down frantically and not getting fire on the first try.

“The tracker built in me locates me anywhere within the state and outside of it. You’ve read about it.”

Gavin nearly dropped the cigarette and clenched his teeth. “You’ve checked my browser history?!”

“I saw it when I was walking past you.” RK900 shrugged. “You were sitting on the couch. In the headphones.”

Richard wasn’t snooping. After all, he respected — tried to respect — Reed’s personal space; he was fine with just scanning him occasionally, which he tried to stop doing little by little — Gavin repeatedly told him it annoyed him.

“Why are you asking all this, Detective?”

Gavin hesitated, tossed the pack of cigarettes on the table behind him and rubbed his buzzing temple. “Look, you… you’re not gonna freak out and become a deviant, are you?”

RK900 didn’t want to become a deviant, it was against his program, against everything built in him; it was scary, it was something new and inexplicable (if he were a human it would drive him mad).  
Becoming a deviant was illegal, counted as treason against CyberLife and promised for him to end up on a table before the company staff.  
Elimination loomed somewhere ahead of Richard because hell, he still had no problem with cause-and-effect relations.

“Hey, tin can, I’m talking to you.” Reed reached to touch his shoulder; the android caught his hand, squeezing flinched Reed’s rough fingers awkwardly.

“My model is secured from deviancy.” RK900 looked at the fingers locked in the dark and thought that Gavin’s fingers were warm. And that the detective’s heartbeat fastened, body temperature went up, and his emotional state jumped by dozens percent, reflecting in the dark eyes filled with concern. Richard stroked the back of his sweaty hand awkwardly, thinking how beautiful the white plastic would contrast with the detective’s olive skin. “But the fabricators don’t know how well.”

“So in theory–”

“It’s hardly possible.”  
Richard was lying shamelessly and no, he wasn’t bothered by the conscience.

“–you can go nuts.” Gavin turned his gaze to the floor, biting his lip and squeezing the android’s cold hand without thinking.

“I can control it.”

“Really?”

“If I consider it necessary.”  
Richard was a few steps away from becoming a deviant, and the hand squeezed by the detective under the plastic of which mods were busting kept pushing him towards the red screen.

“Necessary?” Gavin frowned, made a face, and started to boil slowly from tension building. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“You…” Richard fell silent, his LED blinking anxiously. “I don’t want to be a machine with you.”

The confession came… easily?

Richard knew he must not become a deviant; it still seemed stupid, illogical, and probably dishonorable (if androids had core principles it wouldn’t say a word about deviancy). But on the scarily weird and scarily wrong side beyond this red wall was Gavin with his stupid jokes, messy hair in the morning and the fish in the bowl.

“Fuck.” Gavin shut his eyes to the point black circles appeared before his eyelids. “Fuck,” he said again quieter, pulling his hand away and leaving the kitchen, not forgetting to take the tossed pack of cigarettes with him. “I’m going to bed, so… keep quiet here, you dumbass.”

The door to the bedroom closed with a bang.

The next day Gavin told Richard to fuck off at the earliest possible juncture (during the breakfast), left the house earlier and was a complete dick at work (even Chris who’d never gotten into conflicts between colleagues tried to calm down the mad detective).

“I’m fucking sick of it already!” Gavin said at the cafeteria, pointing with his finger at Richard sitting at his desk. “You don’t work with it so you don’t fucking know what it’s like!”

“Gavin, you have the best efficiency at the department.” Tina was standing beside him, exchanging glances with surprised Chris who, like the girl herself, twisted a finger at his temple in his mind’s eye.

“That’s because I tolerate this piece of shit.” Gavin put a cup of coffee on the table, staring right in eye of Richard frozen before the cafeteria. “But you know what, any patience has a fucking limit. I’m sick of working with plastic. At this rate I’ll soon be stinking of thirium.” And laughed out loud, turning away from the android.

RK900 could hold himself together in any situation and nothing could ever give up his state except for the LED on his right temple.

He turned to Reed with his left shoulder and left the cafeteria.

“Fowler still won’t swap your partner.”

Fowler indeed refused to swap Gavin’s partner, not forgetting to ask before that what happened between them, because “You even live together, Reed. I had to register it on you so it could leave the station at night.”

“Then register it on someone else. Consider we didn’t click.”

“Are you kidding me?!”

“I can work alone. Did it great before, won’t have any problem now,” and added something quietly, so RK900 walking past the closed office couldn’t hear.

Richard was a negotiator android with a lot of data considering human behavior and relationships between them in his base, yet he couldn’t interpret the change in Gavin’s behavior. The detective had been ignoring him throughout all day, not noticing the intent looks and the LED flashing yellow when he had to walk past the android to sign documents. RK900 tried hard to understand what he’d done wrong, going through the last days event in his memory (his memory contained way too much information about Gavin), and couldn’t find anything that could crucially affect their relationship.

He shouldn’t have told Gavin to dress warmer?  
Taken that thirium from the cabinet?  
Should’ve woken him up after all when he’d fallen asleep on his shoulder on the couch?

Richard was sitting in front of Reed, slowly finishing paperwork and casting thoughtful glances at the chair turned to him with its back.

When the detective left the station earlier than usual after telling RK900 not to come _home_ the android sincerely wished there wasn’t a block in his program to harming his colleagues.

Richard still left the station, following Gavin, and caught up with him at the parking.

“Why the fuck did you tag along?!”

“I demand explanations.” Richard stood before him within arm’s reach, frowning and closing notifications popping off, while the sound of thirium running in the wires somewhere at the background of his program was hitting his audio processors.

“What explanations?! Why do I have to explain anything to a freaking machine?!”

In any other situation RK900 would’ve ran a detailed scan of the detective, made a few analyses and built the advantageous behavior pattern long ago, but now he was lost, didn’t understand anything and felt like he was thrown into a video game and didn’t get the rules.

“Becaus–”

“I don’t want to have anything to do with a machine that can freak out and become a deviant any moment.”

Richard fell silent, lowering settings of the environment perception to a minimum, and stared in front of him.

“You might kill me at night.”

“I would never… hurt you.”

“How the fuck should I know,” Gavin snorted, turning to his car and not getting on the button to turn off the alarm on the first try. “You’re saying it now. And then you short circuit and reach for a gun, blow my brains out. So stay away from me for good.”

Gavin drove off, leaving RK900 alone at the parking lot.

Spending the night at the station for the first time in month next to other androids was… uncomfortable.

Richard obeyed Gavin and minimized all interactions with him.  
It wasn’t hard since Fowler came to terms with Reed in the end and put RK900 under Chris’s care. The latter met the new partner with a wide smile and promised not to be a burden during investigations.  
Gavin hardly showed his face at the station all week, driving about crime scenes and questioning witnesses.

Richard couldn’t feel any emotions, but stumbling with his gaze once again upon the pack of plasters on his desk he thought the thirium pump was about to fail.  
He definitely needed to go to CyberLife (he should’ve gone to the company a few months ago — when the first error had emerged; perhaps he would’ve been lucky and gotten taken apart _at once_ ).

Richard still was a machine so he _couldn’t_ pine after somebody (besides, pining after someone you saw every day the android found illogical) but Gavin’s absence was so unusual it tore his wires (figuratively speaking, of course).

During the next week an operation to take in the large gang of drug dealers was being prepared, so the whole station was involved in their capture. Richard obeyed Chris’s orders, kept track of the criminals’ movements inside a hangar and took part in the raid as one of the best officers (androids weren’t counted as officers but RK900 had sort of gained respect among some police officers for the last six months).

After the successful arrest (a few police officers got hurt and one android got knocked out in Richard’s group) Richard came out of the hangar, cutting off thirium supply to his arm — he’d caught one bullet in the end when got distracted, searching for Reed at the other side of the hangar — something had gone wrong in his group (it was stupid and irrational but Richard stood on the edge of deviancy so he was allowed to act illogical by status).

The android made a few steps and heard nearly hysterical voice from the side.

“–what fucking model, I’m asking you, dipshit!”

“How should I know?! I don’t remember the model of every android. A tall one. Just a usual android, peeked from around the corner at the wrong time and caught a bullet.”

“Fucking hell, how did you even get this job if you can’t remem–” Gavin turned around and saw RK900 standing a few feet away, holding on the wounded arm.  
Gavin fell silent mid-sentence and ran up to him fast, limping to the left leg, and took him by the healthy shoulder.  
“What the fuck is this?” Gavin frowned, looking at the bullet hole, and clenched his teeth, trying to suppress the panic coming at him, reflecting with a grimace on his face.  
There was a lot of thirium on the white sleeve, _more_ than during the arrest when they were partners, which caused an uncontrolled wave of shiver running down the spine, getting lost in the unsettled beating of his heart.

“A casual wound, Detective.” Richard was standing still, afraid to move and do something wrong _again_ ; there were new grazes on Reed’s brow, the scan showed his left calf was scratched by a bullet leaving a bleeding cut.

“Fuck, some android–”

“PC200. It was in my group.”

“I fucking know that. I…” Gavin bit his lower lip, clenching the fabric of the dusty jacket tighter, and breathed out nervously and pressed his wet forehead against the healthy shoulder, raising the familiar errors in the android’s system (RK900 could even admit he missed them). “I thought… never mind.”

Richard didn’t have time to say anything — Gavin pulled away suddenly and went to the cars, silent.

And the next day Gavin continued avoiding him, ignoring him, and cursing him out.

Richard had nothing left to do but to turn up at his house in the evening. He still tried to respect his personal space, but the android just couldn’t get what was happening between them.

“What the hell are you doing here?!”

Richard squeezed into the corridor, closing the door behind him and pushing Gavin back to the living room, ignoring the shouts and attempts to get him out.

“Hello, Detective,” RK900’s voice remained steady while the LED on his temple gleamed in yellow and red in the dark. “We should talk.”

“The fuck?! I’ve told you everything already!” Gavin, slightly limping, followed him to the kitchen where the android put the light on like he owned the place and stood in the middle of the room, folding his arms on his chest. “Get the fuck otta here!”

“I won’t leave until you explain everything.”  
Richard’s scanners detected cigarette smoke the kitchen was permeated with; there were a few smoked packs on the sill in the corner.

“I can just kick you out.” Gavin stood in front of him and Richard saw black circles under his eyes on his drawn face.

“No, you can’t.”

“Listen here, you–” Gavin rushed up to him in attempt to grasp the jacket collar but his hand was intercepted and squeezed in a tight grip that made his wrist cramp.

“As I said before, Detective, I won’t leave your house until you explain why you act like such an asshole.” Reed drew his left hand back to punch the android but Richard managed to catch this one too few inches away from his face, gripping the fist. “I repeat, Detective,” RK900 leaned, looking dangerously in the narrowed, angry eyes, “I require explanations. You kick me out, ignore me at work, refuse to be my partner, and then you search for me after the raid because you’re scared it could be me instead of PC200.”

“You’re so fucking imaginative.” Gavin gritted his teeth, pulling his hands away and taking a few steps back. “CyberLife really did their best. I should send them a postcard.” Gavin clenched his hands into fists, looking from under his brows at the LED shining yellow. “Me?” Pointed at himself with a finger. “Scared for you?” Grinned so broadly it hurt his cheekbones. Richard watched carefully, picking up every movement. “Read my lips, dipshit: I don’t give a shit about you. Even if you’re fucking taken apart, even if a fucking train run over you or you end up in open space I won’t give a fuck.” Gavin turned around, making his way to a kettle. “So yeah, go away before I shot you in the face.”

“You’re lying.”

“Huh?” Gavin turned back.

“Your heartbeat, body temperature, mimics… all your gestures signal that you’re lying.”

“And so what? You’re a polygraph now?”

“You know these functions are built in my program originally and were helpful during interrogations many times.”

“Then go to CyberLife and tell them you’re broken.”

“Your hands are shaking.” Richard took a step forward and the world got painted red instantly, pouring in a rain of errors he seemed to be ready to put his face under. “And you’re breathing hard.”

Gavin jerked and turned to the android. “You really don’t get it why the hell I don’t want to deal with you?” He took a deep breath through his nose, trying to settle the stretched strings his nerves were. “Fuck, you’re the smartest android, so use your brain or whatever and stop fucking with me.”

“This is about deviancy?”

“Bingo.”

“I won’t do anything that might hurt you in any way. If I could or… wanted this, you wouldn’t stand here right now. I would never–”

“I know that, you dumbass.”

Richard quirked an eyebrow, surprised, glancing at the slumping detective looking gloomily out the open window at the dark street with burned-out lanterns.

“Does me becoming a deviant scare you?”

Gavin was silent for some time.

“You’ll be deactivated as soon as you lose it.”

“I don’t care whether I’m going to be deactivated or not.”

“But I fucking do! I don’t want you to…” Gavin’s shaking voice cracked, “to…” He pursed his lips and rubbed his nose nervously with his thumb and forefinger. “Fuck, Richard, just leave, just get the fuck out of my house.”

The deviancy safeguard program’s codes melted, disappearing from the screen and deleting themselves from the system.  
Richard cracked a smile. “What’s the point remaining a machine if I can’t be with you?”

Gavin froze and shut his eyes, sticking his nails into the skin on his palms. “You’re around me all the time anyway. I’m sick of your face.”

“You realize that’s not what I mean.”

“Leave,” said quietly, almost hopelessly.

“I won’t leave,” and almost tenderly, “Gavin.”

Reed swallowed, hearing his own name. “Go away!”

“No!”

Gavin opened his eyes with fear frozen at the bottom, making Richard’s LED blink. Reed came to him on stiff legs, limping on one, and put a hand on his forearm, giving it a light squeeze. “You deviated?”

“No?” Richard frowned slightly, checking the settings. “Not yet.” He took a step forward, putting a hand on Gavin’s waist hesitantly and stroking it with his fingertips, listening to the thirium pump echoing in his audio processor.

Gavin lowered his head, looking at his feet and feeling gentle, pleasant tickling. “They’ll take you apart, will dig inside you and search the reason of deviancy in your stupid program while I’ll be slowly drinking myself to death here.”

Richard came closer, touching short hair on the top of Gavin’s head with his nose and resting his hand on Reed’s back, making him shiver from the feeling of the cold palm through the thin fabric.

“Anderson 2.0.”

“Gavin.” The android pulled Reed’s head up by his chin and pressed his forehead against his, meeting the dark eyes glowing with embarrassment. Gavin’s hot breath scorched the open plastic lips.

“Wish I had a dog.” Gavin put his hand on Richard’s neck, the other rested on the stiff back, giving a painful grin. “To howl. Fishlet can hardly–”

Richard leaned forward and kissed him, completely breaking barely living codes, bringing a stream of red waterfall down on them, making them crack, break into fragments and become dust, disappearing in the dim kitchen light.

Gavin opened his mouth, capturing Richard’s upper lip and causing frantic errors in his synthetic body that nearly made the biocomponents inside his stomach fail. Richard didn’t know how to kiss properly but he was a quick learner so he remembered and copied Gavin, feeling the tension building inside heating processors.

 _This_ was all too much for Richard; _this_ washed him away in waves, hitting him by the rocks of deviancy and leaving drops of thirium on them.

Richard cuddled up to Gavin, ran his dry tongue over his lips, thrilled with other person’s loud heartbeat; it made thirium run frantically in his wires, threatening to break through joints soldered together and knock out fastened machinery.

If this was what being a deviant like, Richard regretted _nothing._  
And even if rA9 came down to earth from cyber-clouds and offered to rewrite the program (rewrite the last minutes) — Richard wouldn’t agree even for a chance to go to robot heaven.

These _feelings_ he couldn’t interpreter, couldn’t explain and still couldn’t understand hit him with bombs thrown on him with kisses Gavin left on his lips.

Gavin pulled away, recovering his breath. “So?” said in a hoarse voice. “What’s your first impression of deviancy?”

Richard drew his eyebrows together in thought, saying in a cracked voice because of the sound card failing, “I can’t explain it.”

“Well, is it at least nice?”

“Kissing you?”

“Feeling, you dumbass,” Reed snorted, leaning his back against the wall and cocking his head curiously.

Richard’s head was full with so much unknown and unfamiliar which he couldn’t express in words despite having a huge word base.

“It’s… weird.”

Reed snorted and slid down the wall, sitting on the cold floor and bending his knees. He looked up at the frozen android and gestured at the place in front of him.

“You need an invitation?”

“Your leg–”

“Is just fine,” Gavin dismissed, sniffling. “And don’t fucking scan me.”

Richard sat between Reed’s spread legs, putting one hand on the wounded leg and pulling him closer by the neck with the other.

“The moment CyberLife bastards burst in here,” Gavin said, squinting at the hand on his calf, right where the bandages were under the fabric of his sweatpants, “you’ll be standing at the doorstep because I don’t fucking want them to see me making out with you.”

“I’ll warn you in twenty seconds.”

Richard kissed his cheeks, his cheekbones, his nose and his chin; ran with the dry lips along his nose bridge and the tip of his nose (which he managed to bite and saw a funny expression on the wry face), licked his chin and his neck with the rough tongue, feeling Gavin’s excited shiver spreading in his body like a thick heat haze and going over to him.

Richard _felt_ deviancy arrows piercing him, blowing up his systems with errors (he had to turn them off because the only thing the android wanted to be distracted with was Reed burning under his cold touches).

Gavin leaned his head against the wall, letting Richard’s tongue slid to his neck and ran over his jolted Adam’s apple. He took a deep, loud breath when the android suck the thin skin in, leaving red spots on it.

“Fuck, I even tried to find out if there was a way to remove the tracker,” Gavin said in a hoarse voice, staring hopelessly at the ceiling.

“It’s built into my program, Detective.”

Gavin tsked, getting a hold of Richard’s short hair at the back of his neck and pulling him away (which he regretted doing immediately as the look of these drunk, melting gray-blue eyes knocked the wind out of him).

“You’ve left hickeys on my neck and bitten my lips, you can’t call me detective.” He poked at his cheek with a finger.

“I can call you whatever I want.” Richard turned his head and bit the tip of the finger, giving Reed who opened his mouth in surprise a sly look.

“Oh yeah, you can fucking want now.”

“And I want you.”

Gavin nearly choked on his breath and swallowed loudly, feeling embarrassment spreading on his cheeks from the devilish, narrowed eyes and the drunken grin.

“For someone who don’t know how to kiss properly you’re acting up way too much.” Gavin grabbed him by the open jacket collar, pulling him closer.

“I’m sorry you’re not the best teacher,” the android whispered into the bitten, swollen lips, running his tongue over the dimple below them.

“You’re such an asshole.”

He wanted to touch Gavin, he wanted to grow into Gavin and don’t let go until the sun and a few nearby galaxies explode.

The realization that he’d have to let go of Reed when CyberLife cars would come to the house made _something_ inside him hurt. This _something_ burned and tied the wires in knots, causing Richard to cling to him, not daring to pull away from the red lips.

Richard had never been scared before.  
The fear of letting Gavin go _once and for all_ hit the system with hammers and axes, making him grip the fabric of the dark T-shirt tighter.

Gavin exposed himself to the frantic kisses, kept squeezing his eyes shut, gasped, and reached out for Richard, cursing freaking androids (except for one), cursing CyberLife, and cursing this whole fucking country with its fucking laws.

Gavin believed all of this was so fucking unfair.  
In six months Richard (damn you) got to the very depth, became almost close to him (an own android, look what you got to, Gavin) and somewhat trusted.

Gavin actually didn’t know what he would do without him.

Gavin’s insides were being torn to pieces, becoming a mess of sharp glass crawling up to his heart beating hysterically.

“Where are those dickheads?” Gavin nuzzled into Richard’s ear, running his fingers across the android’s bowed back.  
He felt like he could sit like that for fucking hours (and no one had the right to blame him for sentimentality, just fuck you all).

“About seven minutes away.”

For hours, haha.

“If you’d given me time, I would’ve–”

“Would’ve what?” Richard pulled away, looking in the detective’s downcast eyes. “You know the tracker locates me. Its removal will lead to a self-destruct.”

“I’m not talking about fucking CyberLife.” Gavin gathered himself up, sitting up and twisting from the arms of disheveled android (seeing him with his hair not arranged was so unusual Gavin couldn’t take his eyes off him). “I could’ve found… somebody. Someone’s doing this shit. Helping androids cross the border or… fuck, at least removing the tracker.”

“My deviancy…”

“What? It was so shitty? But you could control it?” Gavin’s brow furrowed, his eyes narrowed. “You couldn’t control it.”

“I couldn’t. I mean…” Gavin kicked his knee with the good leg, pursing his lips into a thin line. “I’ve been controlling it all this time, Detective.”

“Gavin.” Reed rolled his eyes. “I prefer Gavin, otherwise I just feel like in role-playing.”

“Do you like role-playing?” Richard cocked his head, quirking an eyebrow.

“Fuck if I know.” Gavin kicked the frowning android again. “And you will never know either.”

Richard sighed theatrically. “I was one step away when I was talking to you about it two weeks ago. I was short on time already.” Richard leaned and threw his arms around Reed’s back, resting his chin on his shoulder and nuzzling against the wet neck.

“It could’ve been enough, you stupid, deviant machine.”  
Gavin could’ve ran a make on all the informers, all the friends, could’ve searched through whole base of the Central Station (and then some) and would’ve certainly come up with _something_.  
Realizing it made his eyes sting painfully.  
If he…

If he hadn’t kicked Richard out two weeks ago they could’ve talked and decided what to do.  
If he hadn’t kicked Richard out two weeks ago they would’ve left the country, taking the fish in the bowl with them.  
If he hadn’t kicked Richard out two weeks ago they wouldn’t have had to choke on (revel in) slipping minutes until the cars arrived.

Gavin had gotten scared, Gavin had gotten angry, Gavin had fucked it up all by himself.  
He hadn’t wanted to put Richard in danger _because of himself_.  
_I don’t want to be a machine with you._

Good job, Gavin, you made it.

“Be glad, Gavin, I took example of you.”

“Huh?”

“Yielded to the… emotions? I’m not sure whether it’s appropriate to say that about what my program showed at the moment. But I really didn’t think.”

Gavin took a deep breath and whispered quietly, dangerously for him to shut up before he pulled the thirium pump out of his chest and threw it out of the window. He felt a light grin tugging at the android’s mouth and fell silent.

“Let’s hide you in the garage,” Reed said after a _not_ long minute, cutting through the silence.

“Did I mention you have a terrible sense of humor?”

“I’m serious, tin can.”

And Gavin’s voice was filled with such pain it passed to Richard by the vibrating wires.  
Richard, to be honest, was in pain, too.

“Just hold me.”

Gavin swallowed a lump in his throat and held the android tight, either pushing him into himself or pushing himself into him. “So you’re a romantic type, huh?”

Richard had never thought about how fleeting time is. Events he’d experienced was lined up in his memory archives.  
His time perception was static, so he couldn’t explain why he wanted (begged god knows who) it to stop.

Richard left the last, long kiss behind the pierced ear, closing his eyes and feeling his chest being torn into pieces by the fastened thirium pump.

“Gavin,” Richard made himself to put his hands away (he never touched his skin with the naked plastic), “you asked to warn you in twenty seconds, let me go.”

Gavin tightened his grip on his jacket.

A warning knock at the door came in along with shouts of trained company staff.

“Gavin,” the android liked to call him by his name, roll it on his tongue and say it in different tones (not that he had time to say it at least ten times), “you better let me go.”

“Shut up,” Reed whispered. “Just shut the fuck up.” Buried his face in his neck.

The door was kicked down, and the sharp knock on the wall echoed at the house.

Gavin gritted his teeth, feeling his throat becoming raw.

“Your hair smells cinnamon.”

Men in CyberLife uniform burst into the kitchen, demanding the deviant to stand up and not make any sudden movements.

Reed wished a train run over them.

“I thought you liked it,” whispered under his breath into his collarbone.

Richard left a kiss on his nose — on the scar line — stood up, not looking at Reed, and let the men take him.

When half an hour later Gavin opened the upper cabinet to get a new pack of cigarettes, a bag of thirium fell on him.  
Gavin clenched it in his hand, pressing his forehead against the door and shutting his red eyes tight.


End file.
